A Lot More People Are Watching Rachel Maddow Right Now Than A Year Ago

As we noted, Piers Morgan's big, last-minute, live sitdown interview with Charlie Sheen last night resulted in huge ratings for the show, beating Morgan's much-hyped premiere interview with Oprah Winfrey in demo viewers.

Over at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, Morgan's competition at 9pm, is the one bright spot on in an Olbermann-free line-up.

Maddow is up 39% in the demo and 34% in total viewers since last year.

Olby's replacement Lawrence O'Donnell held steady from Olbermann's numbers at 8pm a year ago, but was down from Olbermann's numbers in his last quarter. Ed Schultz was down from what O'Donnell did in the 10pm spot last month but up from Olby's 10 pm reruns last year.

Perhaps that has something to do with the fact so many people were watching Anderson Cooper at 10pm.

Cooper, who spent part of the month live on the ground in Egypt, especially did very well with 83% bump demo viewers and a 41% increase in total viewers.

In fact, February was very good to CNN across the board -- perhaps not surprisingly considering all the breaking news out of the Mid-East.From CNN's press release:

CNN had the most growth of any cable news network in M-F primetime compared to a year ago, increasing an impressive 55% increase in the key demo 25-54 (243k vs. 157k) while MSNBC grew only +8% (265k vs. 246k) and FNC lost viewers, decreasing -14% (575k vs. 666k).

So a very strong month for CNN, though it's worth noting that despite Fox's decline year-over-year they are still dominating cable ratings. Dominating.

Speaking of which, Glenn Beck, who saw a steep ratings decline in January remains down year-over-year but has rebounded back to the number four spot in cable news shows ahead of Bret Baier, with 2.055 million total viewers and 501,000 in the demo.